Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Meet Starfield’s version of R2-D2, a robot named Vasco

Add as a preferred source on Google

Bethesda’s open worlds can get lonely to explore, and considering that Starfield will have players explore an entire galaxy, that feeling might be worse. Companions offset that, and thanks to a new trailer for the game, we’ve been introduced to Vasco, one of the likely many friendly faces that players will trek the stars with.

Starfield: Meet Vasco

The caveat here is that Vasco doesn’t actually have a face. It’s a robotic companion that’s been in service to Constellation, the player character’s organization, for quite a while. Vasco was built as an expeditionary robot, meaning that he doesn’t have too many onboard weapons and is instead built for more industrious tasks. One clip in the trailer shows Vasco repairing a ship, though it’s unknown if players will have to do the same over the course of their star-bound adventures.

Vasco from Starfield looking into the camera.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Vasco does have some weapons, including what seems to be a laser in its camera and a gun built into its arm, though the trailer is explicit in saying it’s not a machine built for combat. Players will probably encounter much more threatening mechs than Vasco over the course of the game. Considering that Bethesda likes to throw a decent number of companions into its games players may even be able to recruit their own kill-bot. If the game borrows anything from Fallout 4, players may even be able to build their own bots from scratch.

Recommended Videos

Starfield is set to launch later this year, on November 11, but we still don’t know that much about it. Bethesda has kept details on the upcoming title close to its chest, though the studio has shared that the game will have an Oblivion-esque persuasion minigame.

Otto Kratky
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…
Sony’s wild PSN login patent could turn the DualSense into a security gatekeeper
A newly published filing outlines controller-based sign-ins for PlayStation users, aiming to make stolen accounts harder to exploit.
Geoff Keighley holding DualSense.

Sony has filed a PSN login patent, first spotted by RespawnFirst, that would pull the DualSense controller into the sign-in process. A PlayStation console would start the request, then the controller would help confirm that the account holder is close enough to approve access.

For players, the appeal is easy to see. PSN account abuse can lead to unauthorized purchases, lost access, and attempts to resell established accounts. Sony already offers 2-step verification and passkeys, but this idea adds a hardware check to the login chain.

Read more
This study found a surprising mental health perk hiding in your game library
Researchers surveyed 2,252 adults and found that specific game genres, not gaming in general, line up with lower loneliness and stronger emotional resilience.
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild official artwork

A new study has found that adults who play certain video games report feeling less lonely and more emotionally resilient than people who don't play games at all. The findings challenge the idea that gaming is just a way to escape from real life and instead tie specific kinds of games to real, measurable shifts in how people cope with stress and isolation.

What the study found

Read more
GTA 6 may be far away, so Rockstar gave GTA 5 a fresh coat of paint
Grand Theft Auto 5

With Grand Theft Auto 6 now just months away, Rockstar Games is giving longtime Grand Theft Auto 5 players a reason to revisit Los Santos. The company has announced that owners of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of GTA 5 will receive a free upgrade to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game.

The move comes as Rockstar ramps up excitement for GTA 6, which is currently scheduled to launch on November 19 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. Previously, upgrading from the older console versions to the current-generation release required a separate purchase, typically costing around $10. Beginning Thursday, however, eligible players will be able to move to the newer version at no additional cost.

Read more